Friday, December 31, 2010

I'm Not a Hippie

I'm not even that granola. I guess I could be medium-granola. We recycle, and I buy organic/local food when I can, and try to remember my own shopping bags, and we each drive a Prius, but it's not like I wear long flax-seed skirts and participate in communal living. I say all this because Pete and I are going to use cloth diapers when our Wee One arrives in April (insert snarky comments from my two brothers here).

We're actually pretty excited about it. I read about cloth diapering on Young House Love when we were newly pregnant and sent a link to the post to Pete. He was surprisingly quick to jump on board with it! I waited until Thanksgiving and sent an email to Sherry at YHL to see if they still loved their cloth diapers as much as they did 6 months ago when their little girl was born. She emailed me back right away (which was really exciting for me since she's sort-of an internet celebrity) and said they DID still love them and really didn't see why more people weren't using them.

Also, an SLP I worked with this semester has two children and she uses cloth diapers too! Now I'm not talking about our grandmothers' cloth diapers. Technology has changed the way of diapering. We've chosen to go with an all-in-one diaper since the thought of having to stuff a liner into something at 3am when I'm barely coherent isn't appealing. Also these are easier for staff at a day-care to use. These have velcro tabs just like disposables. We're also getting individually-sized diapers over the one-size with a bajillion snaps kind. This cuts down on bulk. We'll just install this cool spray-jet to our toilet for those diapers that have a little more er...mass... to them. Just dump the poo in the toilet, rinse out with the jet, and off to the laundry they go!! The bumGenius 3.0 All-in-One cloth diaper:

Obviously there's a cost-benefit to them as well. Big investment at first - but savings in the long term. So, though they come in cutie girl colors like zinnia and blossom, we'll probably get gender neutral colors like grasshopper (in the picture), butternut, twilight, and plain old white.

Good luck! I know lots of people that use them and love them. I expect many posts about your adventures in cloth diapering! Just a word of caution: check with your daycare - ours does not allow cloth diapers.

P.S. Recycling, Prius driving, shopping-bag-carting, cloth-diapering people are the NEW hippies - get used to it.

laura, i randomly checked your blog today and am so glad i did because i just purchased our cloth diapers this week! i, too, am a huge fan of YHL and have been following their cloth diaper adventures for awhile! i'm also guessing that the SLP that you alluded to is Jessica? she totally has me sold on them and i'm excited to get started :) we went with fuzzibunz (they were on sale, have good reviews and came highly recommended by a friend), but i've heard great things about the bumgenius ones, too. here we go!

I don't know why you expect snarky comments from me. We almost went cloth.. The newer nifty designs weren't quite as available 5 years ago as they are today.. I would suggest you may want to keep a small supply of disposables around for emergencies or days where a nap seems more important than laundry. (Even the Prius drivers I know occasionally drive a Honda Pilot)

As the Kiwis say: Good on ya mate! We use cloth (very similar to fuzzibunz) and while it's more work laundry-wise, I wouldn't never consider exclusively using disposables. Not only are you saving $$ in the long run with cloth, you're avoiding the mountains of waste disposables cause (literally). Babies go through 100s of diapers a month! And we think the excess water used in doing laundry everyday is sorta counterbalanced by bathing Ruby weekly and not daily. Babies stay remarkably clean in the first few months. :)

Emily - I ordered ours this week, too! bumGenius were also on sale...Pete - I agree w/having some disposables on hand, we've already been gifted someMeredith - I'm at Mother Nurture at least once a week to take my prenatal yoga class :)

Yay, Laura and Pete! I'm so glad you decided to use cloth diapers. (I also think it's hilarious that we all feel so excited by this decision. I don't even have kids but I'm excited. So excited I'm compelled to tell you son.)